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Saturday, September 5, 2015

Orange Drank - Tasting Notes

Brewery: Old North BrewingStyle: India Pale Ale Brewed On: 08.16.2015Kegged On: 09.01.2015OG: 1.060 (after dilution from 1.063)FG: 1.009ABV: 6.7%Appearance: Completely opaque. Ridiculously so. Big, sticky off-white head hang around for quite a while. Nice tight bubble structure. When not in good light, the beer appears a bit brown. In good light it's nice and orange.Smell: My wife said "This smells like sunshine!" when I handed her a sample. I'm inclined to agree. Huge citrus aroma. Layers of mandarin, tangerine, meyer lemon, starfruit, mango, and a hint of pine. Just layers of tasty citrusy hops.Taste: The caramel 40 gives this a bit too much of a malt flavor for my preferences. Other than that, this is a great beer. Bitterness stands nicely among a storm of hop flavors. As the beer warms the flavors evolve from orange juice to mangoes and tangerines. Oatmeal flavor is present as well, but in the background.Mouthfeel: Thick. Like so thick. Nearly milkshake thick. This beer is thicker than some stout's I've had. Also super creamy. Carbonation (at 2.2 vols) is nice. Overall: Great beer. Next time I brew, there will certainly be a few tweaks to the malt bill to rebalance some flavors. But I really like this IPA.Wow. So in some ways this beer completely blew away my expectations. In fact, some things ended up being a bit too much. I didn't know that was possible.The mouthfeel of this body rivals many stouts I've had. It's ridiculous. I love it, and at the same time I think I might have gone a bit overboard. It's like a hoppy, citrusy milkshake. When I brew this beer again, I plan to reduce the oatmeal content to something like 0.5-1 # (still around 5-10 % of the grain bill) and add in around 0.5 # of wheat malt as well. The caramel 40 is a bit too much as well, and I think I will go with caramel 20 or carared next time around. I think this will bring the body a little more inline with what I had in mind. I definitely will have to refine the malt bill of this recipe in the next few iterations to really nail my vision of this beer.The water chemistry seems to have been a huge success. There is a certain creaminess about this beer that can't be attributed solely to the flaked oats. The hop aromas are way more in-your-face and the flavors are really nice, but the bitterness melds nicely into the background, supporting but not overwhelming.I think with a few tweaks this beer will be absolutely amazing. Recipe and brew log may be found here.